I want to gather people's opinions and encourage discussion about the chances
to improve real participation in public decision making, democracy and
governance.

Imagine there would be a people's referendum for the citizen's right to take
part in public affairs. This could be a new way to revive democracy, and
the debate about it, in Britain (maybe elsewhere, too). "Taking part" means,
for instance, being able to put a new law before parliament and the people,
to cancel an existing law or to dismiss an M.P. who has represented her or
his constituents badly.

Below is a suggestion for the text of a people's referendum (called "Proposal").
If enough citizens want the referendum to go ahead, volunteers will be needed
to organise the proceedings and collect the signed ballot papers. The latter
could be done both "on paper" and "on-line".

In brief, the suggestion is "Have a referendum for the right to referenda!"
_________________________________________________________________

PEOPLE'S PROPOSAL TO RENEW DEMOCRACY (with Rider, below)

We the undersigned propose that a law be passed in parliament which enables
and provides finance for the following forms of democracy at all levels of
government from local to national, these forms of democracy to be initiated
by a fair and reasonable percentage of the population, with decisions being
made by an appropriate majority of voters:

1) Initiation of laws to be voted upon by the legislative body be it parliament,
assembly or council (Citizens' Initiative).

2) Referendum: The people decide, for instance if the legislative has decided
_against_ the citizens' initiatives in 1) or 3).

3) Cancellation or modification of existing laws by citizens' initiative
or referendum.

4) Recall of elected public delegates, representatives and officials at any
time during the usual period of office: The people decide.

A "green paper" outlining the hereto relevant practices of democracy in other
countries and describing different reform options and the reasons for these
shall be rapidly published and made freely available (gratis) via wide-area
computer networks such as Internet.

Signed

___________________________

Rider

By signing the foregoing proposal I mandate my Member of Parliament to help
introduce and support an appropriate Bill in Parliament. In future my vote
will go ONLY to those candidates for parliamentary office who promise to
support the proposal.

Signed

End of proposal.

_________________________________________________________________

SOME BACKGROUND THOUGHTS AND ARGUMENTS

In an almost purely representative democracy such as the United Kingdom most
people can contribute only by voting for an MP once every few years.Recently
there have been moves to mitigate this lack of citizens' involvement in their
own affairs by introducing consultative procedures such as panels, usually
of a dozen or so people from different backgrounds, asked to consider matters
such as an aspect of health care. Also, the changes involving proportional
election systems, and the whole devolution process appear to be intended
to improve the quality of representation of the will of constituents.

There are other, arguably more effective ways to improve representation in
public affairs, namely those in which citizens represent themselves directly.
Obviously, parliamentary systems, governments and administrations will not
become redundant but, using already established methods, citizens can be
enabled to intervene when they (that is, a reasonable quorum) so wish. Some
of these methods of decision making are known as citizens' (law) initiative,
referendum and recall (IRR -- see note below*). Passive procedures, such
as when the people of a European country are asked by their government if
they want to join or leave the European Community, are _not_ meant here.
I am referring to procedures which are _actively_introduced by a large number
of constituents, and to legislative proposals in which a majority of them
decide.

IRR offer some ways in which tried, effective "checks and balances" can be
introduced into public affairs and decision making, involving public
administration and parliamentary democracy. My proposal to introduce IRR
does not of course suggest that parliament should be abolished or weakened.

I suggest that on the contrary the whole system of governance would be
strengthened. These reforms would give the voters a way to have more say
in their own affairs if and when enough of them want it, without having to
wait till the next election in order "to throw the blighters out" (a clumsy
way to express creative wishes or discontent, often too late for many
problem-issues). With IRR there can be a more refined, developed and focussed
discourse of the people with their representatives and delegates.

Further, it has been suggested that politicians and ministers tend to respect
the wishes of their constituents more, merely because the possibility of
citizen intervention in parliamentary process exists.

Information and Deliberation

It is often asserted that the directer forms of democracy such as IRR do
not allow adequate consideration of the issue at stake. Agreed, a rapid process
conducted like an opinion survey might gather many unreflected replies. But
that is not what is proposed here. There are very good ways to build in plenty
of information, discussion, and debating time (summed up as "deliberation")
into the processes of citizen-initiated lawmaking. For instance:

The time from launching initiative to decision is several months at least.

The two or three (depending on method) phases of the citizens' initiative
are accompanied by dissemination of information and public debate. An agreed
percentage of citizen votes must be collected to start the initiative in
order to put a law before parliament. If it is rejected, then many
more votes must be collected in order to start and carry through a public
referendum. Proponents of the initiative must engage the public in debate,
or they will not succeed in mobilising enough support to take the process
further. Similarly, opponents of the initiative will try to mobilise dissent
by disseminating counter arguments, thus creating further debate.

Information about the issue at stake must be freely available to any citizen
who wants it.

Public debate and information can nowadays be aided by information and
communication technology such as e-mail, WWW, on-line discussion; not forgetting
television, radio and print.

Electronic collection of signatures and electronic voting in referenda, for
instance using the bank teller system or Internet, would speed up matters.
But this not essential.

*Note. The abbreviation IRR refers to Citizens' Law Initiative, Referendum
and Recall of elected representatives.

_________________________________________________________________

Dr. Michael Macpherson, July 1999.

Distribution: The above People's Proposal to Renew Democracy, with or without
the "background thoughts and arguments", may be copied and circulated
electronically or in print.

Communication 2

Friends and Colleagues,

Proposal to renew democracy attracts interest. A discussion space for: People's
proposal to renew democracy (request for comments 2)
has been set up in Democr@cy Forum
http://www.democracyforum.net

Some early responses to People's proposal/rfc2 have already arrived, for
instance

"your proposal puts all crucial points into a nutshell. I completely agree
with this proposal." Dr. Christian Welzel, The Science Centre, Berlin FRG

"I agree with what you are proposing. (...) The issues are very relevant
to my work on nuclear waste where any management solution is now generally
agreed only likely to work if it has maximum public support with any local
community finding itself chosen, having the right to a referendum to reject
that." Jamie Woolley, Lawyer, Great Britain.

"I have copied this response, along with your message to Gordon James, FoE
Cymru's Head of Campaigns." Julian Rosser, Friends of the Earth, Wales

NEWS ITEMS

- In May 99 I sent a first version of the proposal to a group of people across
the world whom I know are interested in democracy. I collected the replies
- most of them are to be found in WWW at
http://www.snafu.de/~mjm/reform.html
(rfc/People's proposal to renew democracy).

- A short version of the proposal has been published in print in Worldwide
Direct Democracy Newsletter Vol.1 (No.2) June 1999. Available from Movement
for Direct Democracy, P.O.Box 38, 149 00 Prague 415, Czech Republic fax:
Czech Republic, 2-791 79 69 mailto:jiri.polak@swipnet.se or
mailto:binka@phil.muni.cz (Volume 1 No 1 is interesting, too.)